parties) joined forces and revolted against Justinian, the greatest
Byzantine emperor of all. After they had burned much of the city,
they surged into the Circus and called on the emperor to abdicate.
The mighty Justinian, who had even ordered a ship ready for a quick
escape, was about to give in when suddenly his empress, Theodora,
stood beside him. She was an ex-circus girl, one of the people
herself.
“You can do what you want to,” she told him, her eyes flashing. “I am
going to stay here. Anyone who puts on the crown must never take it
off. If I die, I am going to be buried in imperial purple!”
The emperor was ashamed of himself.
“Drive them back to their warrens!” he ordered two of his toughest
generals.
Within hours, the riots were put down.
But even when the empress did not do things like this, she was very
important. For this reason a widower emperor remarried as soon as
possible. Leo the Philosopher married four times and got into almost
as much trouble as Henry VIII. If an emperor didn’t remarry, he made
his daughter the Augusta.
“When there is not an Augusta,” wrote a Byzantine, “it is not
possible to celebrate holidays or give banquets or entertainments in
the manner prescribed by law.”
That may not seem important to us, but it was very important to the
Byzantines. Since the emperor was God’s representative on earth,
every official act of his life had to be like a church service, and
in almost every one of the more than eighty occasions described
in detail in an instruction book for emperors called _The Book of
Ceremonies_, the empress took part.
It was something to see the royal pair on any great Byzantine
holiday, for example, May 11, when they celebrated the founding of
the city.
On this day the statue of Constantine the Great was paraded
through the city in a golden chariot drawn by white mules, and the
emperor sat in the Hippodrome waiting to pay honor to it. He was
clad in robes that literally glittered. His principal garment was
a tunic which reached almost to his ankles. This was called the
_scaramangion_ and was so stiff with brocade that it could have stood
by itself. Over this was a shorter garment called the _saigon_. It
was purple, gold-embroidered, and seeded with pearls. On his head he
wore the _stemmata_, or imperial crown. It twinkled with rubies and
sapphires of the purest ray serene. On his feet were the _campagia_,
or special boots that only the emperor could wear. These too were of
imperial purple, although some people say this imperial purple was
really a deep crimsony red.
The empress sat at his side, just as splendid as he. Her garments
were much like his, but on her crown was a plume made of precious
stones. She wore earrings that dangled far below her shoulders, and
sometimes a neckpiece made of oval or pear-shaped pearls. If he was a
solid gold emperor, she was a solid gold empress too.
Yet in spite of all the splendor and glory (and this is only a little
bit of it), the Byzantine emperor did not have to be royally born.
In the Byzantine Empire it was just as easy to rise from a hovel to
the throne as it is to be born in humble circumstances and become
President of the United States.
Many of the emperors did.
An early emperor had been a butcher. Another had been a swineherd
from Macedonia, and the great Justinian was this swineherd’s nephew.
The savage Phocas was originally a centurion (a top sergeant). Still
another had once been a donkey trader who moved from one country fair
to another. Basil I was raised as a Balkan farm boy. He was very
tall and strong and attracted the attention of the reigning emperor
because he could tame horses. A later emperor had been a petty
officer in the navy. Still another was originally a dockyard worker.
Many of the empresses were humbly born too. Besides Theodora, the
circus girl, there was one who had been a cook, and a third who was
the daughter of a saloonkeeper. Even Saint Theodora was brought up
in poverty because her father, who had once been a courtier, had
given all his money to the poor.
[Illustration: Horse scenes]
Saint Theodora became empress when the emperor picked his bride by
following an old custom of the Byzantine emperors. Wishing to marry,
he sent messengers throughout his realm, telling them to bring back
the most beautiful young women they could find. Seventeen were
paraded before him, and when the one he was about to choose annoyed
him by a flippant answer she made, he chose Theodora.
Theodora did not intend to stay poor like her father. One day, her
husband, the emperor, looked out of the window and saw a rich,
heavily laden merchant vessel sail in and tie up to a wharf.
“I wonder who owns it,” he mused.
“It is mine,” said the empress.
The emperor flew into a fury. _His_ wife should not be engaged in
trade like some huckster. He made her sell it, but he did let her
keep the profits.
Because these rulers were the emperors chosen by God, the Byzantines
bowed their knee to them as the ancient Egyptians had to the
Pharaohs. But because they were from the people, and also because the
Byzantines had sharp tongues and liked to be sarcastic, the people
sometimes gave their rulers a rough time.
There were more than 100 emperors in the long period of the Byzantine
Empire, and many of them were given nicknames. Some of these
nicknames were far from flattering.
Here are just a few: Justinian Nose-Cut-Off. (This was Justinian II,
not the great Justinian.) Constantine the Stable Boy. Michael the
Stutterer. Michael the Drunkard. Constantine Born-in-the-Purple.
Basil the Bulgar Slayer. Michael Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier. Even one
empress had a nickname; Leo the Philosopher’s fourth wife was called
Zoe Black Eyes.
The emperors had to put up with sarcastic epigrams, disrespectful
poems, and uncomplimentary stories. Here is one of them: Michael
Thinks-He’s-a-Soldier had a passion for city planning, but he hated
to spend money. One day the Byzantines saw a principal avenue all
torn up. The pavement had been removed and workmen were everywhere.
“What is happening?” asked one of them. “Oh, yes! I remember! That’s
where the emperor lost one of his halfpenny dice when he was a small
boy. He’s tearing up the pavement to find it!”
But in spite of all this, or maybe because of it, the Byzantine
state was about as solid as was possible. Not even revolutions could
really shake it.
One reason may have been the fact that since the emperors came from
every class and were often changing, the Byzantines were constantly
getting new and vigorous blood in their government. But another
reason was the wonderful and well-organized body of bureaucrats
who helped the emperor govern the empire. When there was a strong
emperor, these men carried out his orders. When there was a weak
emperor, they did the best they could, until a new, strong emperor
mounted the throne.
There was really nothing like this group in any other government in
the world until modern times. They were trained public servants,
headed by high officials who were appointed by the emperor.
The most important of these officials was the Logothete of the
Dromos. (The word _logothete_ really means accountant, but it is like
a secretary in the United States Cabinet.) He was also known as the
Grand Logothete. He was secretary of state, minister of police, and
secretary of the interior.
Besides that, there was a Logothete of the Treasury who was like the
Secretary of the Treasury of the United States; a Logothete of the
Military Chest, who was the paymaster general of the army and navy;
and a Logothete of the Flocks and Herds who was in charge of all the
vast imperial estates. Among other things, he ran the imperial horse
farms where practically all the horses needed by the empire and the
army were raised.
There was also the Sacellerius, or Controller General; the Quaestor,
or Minister of Justice; the Grand Domestic, or commander in chief of
the army; and the Grand Drungarius, or secretary of the navy. These
are only a few of the most important officials.
Under these department heads—and even more important—were the humble
clerks who really did the work of government. These clerks were
banded together into a body called the _logothesia_ which was almost
like our modern civil service. They were well paid, and even the
lowest-ranking workers had unlimited opportunities for graft. In
those days, graft was not considered dishonest; it was more like the
tip that you give to a waiter for his service.
The clerks were also rewarded with honors. Every Byzantine working
for the government had two titles. One described his job, such as
chief clerk to the third assistant to the _eparch_, or lord mayor
of Constantinople. The other was the rank given to him to recognize
his services. Around the emperor alone there were twenty-six ranks,
ranging in order of importance from _caesar_ down to _nipsistarios_,
a man who sprinkled symbolic holy water on the sovereign. In the city
and throughout the empire were sixty other ranks. The badge that was
the symbol of each of these was as important to a Byzantine as his
pay.
It was this government, and most of all its lower-rank employees,
that really ran the Byzantine Empire, for nobody could get on without
them. Emperors and even logothetes came and went, but the Byzantine
civil service clerks were always there. If an army had to be sent to
an overseas province, the clerks knew how many ships and how much
time it would take to get there. If there was a famine, they knew how
many bushels of wheat were needed to feed Constantinople, and where
to get them.
They were for the most part plain citizens from all over the
Byzantine state who had come to the capital not to get rich but just
to make a living. They were noisy. They liked to argue. They were
quarrelsome and jealous. As they jostled through the crowded streets
toward their homes or pushed their way onto the crowded Mesé to buy
silk for their wives or food for their larder, they reeked of garlic
and highly spiced fish. But they kept the empire alive.
[Illustration: Horse and rider]
A ROMAN ARMY ON HORSEBACK
The army kept the empire going too.
It called itself the Roman army; and this Roman army of the Greek
Byzantine Empire was about as efficient as any body of armed men
between the time of Julius Caesar and the days of gunpowder and
artillery.
Actually, though, Julius Caesar would have been astonished if he
had seen it. Who, he would have asked, were these swarthy-skinned,
black-bearded men with their quick and glinting Asiatic eyes? The
commands seemed to be given in Latin, but the accent made them hard
to understand. Why were so many of them on prancing, spirited horses?
Caesar would have remembered his legions like the famous Tenth
Legion with which he landed in Britain. Rome had conquered the world
with her legions. The legion was a body of from 4,000 to 6,000
citizen-soldiers. Except for a small handful who were mounted for
scouting, the legion was made up entirely of foot soldiers. The tough
men who fought in its ranks were clean-shaven, and each one carried a
large shield. He wore a round helmet and a leather cuirass, and was
armed with a short Spanish thrusting sword (that is, you didn’t hack
with it) and a short throwing spear called a _pilum_.
But when in 378 A.D., a mighty Roman emperor was surrounded and
crushed by barbarian horsemen in a Balkan valley not more than 150
miles from Constantinople, the infantry and the legion did not look
unbeatable any more.
The Byzantines decided not to rely on it.
So first Caesar would have seen a large array of well-equipped men
on sturdy chargers. These were the heavy cavalry, later known as
_cataphracts_. They were as renowned as any Byzantine troops. They
wore steel caps, and on each cap was a crest showing the colors of
that _bandon_, or horse regiment. They also wore long mail shirts,
steel gauntlets, steel shoes, and sometimes a light surcoat. Even the
horses, at least those of the officers and the men in the front rank,
had steel head armor and breastplates. For weapons, each man had a
broadsword, a dagger, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a long lance
with a banderole, also in the _bandon_ colors. They could charge like
knights, or by acting as bowmen, they could fight a distant enemy.
Then Caesar would have seen the light troopers, or _trapezidae_.
These too were cavalry, but they were the light cavalry. They did
carry shields, but for body armor they wore only a cuirass of very
light mail or horn. For weapons, they had only a lance and a sword.
There was still infantry in the Byzantine army, but it was now
pretty unimportant. It was used mostly for holding ground which the
cavalry had won. But even the infantry was divided into two groups.
The heavy infantry were about as well armored as the _cataphracts_.
For weapons, they carried a short, heavy battle ax and a dagger.
They could stand off a barbarian cavalry charge. The light infantry
wore no armor, but carried long-range bows. The Byzantine method
of fighting was something like the German blitzkrieg, with cavalry
taking the place of swiftly moving tanks and the foot soldiers
following behind.
The Byzantines did much more than change their army into something
swift and moving, however. They did more than divide the old
clumsy legion into smaller units almost like our modern regiments,
battalions, companies, and platoons. They spent a lot of time
thinking about the whole business of fighting and may even have been
the inventors of carefully planned strategy. They would not have been
at all surprised at our modern war colleges where even generals are
taught in the classroom what to do on the field of battle.
As a matter of fact, at least three Byzantine emperors wrote very
good books on the art of war. These books included much more than
just how to equip and drill an army. They also told the general
exactly how he should fight his battles, and they emphasized that he
must have a different kind of warfare for each different kind of foe.
The Franks, for example—and by the Franks, the Byzantines
meant German and north Italian peoples quite as much as French
and Normans—believe, said the books, that a retreat under any
circumstances is dishonorable. Better die than show your back to the
enemy. They are also very careless about outposts and scouts. So if
you are fighting the Franks, you should try to trap them in a place
where they will be at a disadvantage. Then you can annihilate them.
With the Turks—and by the Turks, the Byzantines also meant the
Hungarians, the Patzinaks, and all the people of the Asiatic
steppes—it is another matter, the books continued. They are light
horsemen who carry bow and arrow as well as javelin and scimitar.
They are hard to surprise because they always post mounted
sentinels. Also you must be careful if you pursue them, for they
don’t stay defeated but rally quickly. However, the heavy Byzantine
_cataphracts_ can ride them down and cut them to pieces. They are
supposed to do so. And the Turks do not dare attack the Byzantine
infantry because of its strong and powerful bows.
The Slavs, on the other hand, are only dangerous when they are led by
Bulgarian khagans or by viking princes, and even then they are only
really dangerous when they are in the hills. The thing to do, said
the strategy books, is to lure them to the plains in hope of plunder.
And then destroy them.
But the really difficult enemy faced by the Byzantines were the newly
risen Arabs, or Saracens.
These wild sheiks from the desert were fanatically brave, for
Mohammed had taught them that the easiest way to get to heaven was to
die killing the unbeliever. Their numbers were limitless, for after
they had conquered Egypt and Syria they drew into their ranks every
discontented person in the Middle East. Once a year they poured, like
a horde of locusts, through the gates of the Taurus Mountains into
what today is southern Turkey. Nothing, including the Byzantine army,
could stop them.
But fortunately, if they were wild and brave, they were also greedy
for plunder, and besides that they could not stand cold or rain. So
once a year too, usually in October or November, they turned back
again, and their mules and camels, loaded down with booty, could not
move back as fast as they had come.
“This is the way to beat them,” said one of the strategy books.
“Always know where they are. Whether you are eating, taking a bath
or sleeping, never turn away a man who says that he has information.
Whether he is a freeman or a slave—no matter who he is!”
And then track them down, catching them in the narrow, snowy, chilly
mountain passes if possible. They won’t fight well when they are
trapped and shivering. Or if they don’t go back of their own accord,
raid their own country and in this way bait them back. But whenever
you fight them, or anyone else, be sure you know what you are doing.
Above all, don’t throw everything into the battle at once. The
general with the last reserves always wins.
The Byzantines also taught their generals not only how to fight
but when to fight, and also when not to fight, which was even more
important. They believed that it was better to be safe than sorry.
The Byzantine general was told that he must never be rash, and above
everything he must never throw his troops into battle where they
might be killed or wounded if he could win the day by stratagems or
tricks.
To be sure, he must always keep his pledged word. If he didn’t, who
would believe him next time? And the lives of captives must always be
spared if possible. One day they might be on the Byzantine side.
But it was all right to send an officer under a flag of truce and
have him pretend that he wanted to discuss terms for surrender,
when he was really acting as a spy. In the meantime, the Byzantines
could bring up reinforcements. It was all right to forge letters
showing that an enemy commander was turning traitor and then arrange
to have them fall into his general’s hands. It was all right to
disguise soldiers as innocent herdsmen driving bleating sheep and
lowing cattle, and have them lure the enemy into a prepared ambush.
Obviously, a feigned retreat was a recognized part of the game. Even
a real retreat did not disgrace a Byzantine general, although the
Byzantines were just as brave and proud as anyone else. At least the
general who retreated would have some soldiers left and could fight
and win another day.
The Byzantines also believed that if you wanted a good army, you
must pay it well and treat it even better. A general’s salary could
be as much as forty pounds of gold a year, and even a recruit had
cash in his pocket. When a soldier served his time he might also get
a grant of land. There was a well-organized supply department, and
the soldiers were always sure of beans, cheese, and wine, to say
nothing of what they could plunder from the country. A special corps
of engineers pitched their tents for them and set up huge baths.
The soldiers were even allowed to have slaves and servants. The
army itself provided a groom for every four cavalrymen, and every
sixteen foot soldiers had an attendant who drove a cart carrying all
they needed. There was even an ambulance corps of stretcher bearers
and surgeons. The stretcher bearers were paid a gold coin for every
wounded man they brought from the field.
This is what the Byzantine regular army was like, but besides that,
especially in the early days, there were regiments or even whole
tribes of Huns, Goths, Alans, and other barbarians who fought for the
emperor under their own chieftains. Later on, particularly in Asia
Minor, there were also the great feudal lords, or Border Men.
There is a wonderful Byzantine poem called _Digenes Akrites_ about
one of these men. Its hero is Basil Digenes Akrites, son of an Arab
emir named Monsour and a Greek lady of the noble Dukas family. For
this reason he is called Digenes Akrites, which means “border man of
two races.”
Basil was a valiant knight like Roland and Sir Lancelot, and in
spite of his Arab father, he was a faithful Christian. And so when
he wasn’t slaying lions, fighting cattle thieves, or rescuing lovely
damsels, he was ready to join forces with the emperor and lead his
men against the infidel.
But he only did this when he thought the emperor was right! When one
of the emperors came to visit his castle he was quite willing to give
him a lecture on how an emperor should act.
Both the barbarians, with their hard-riding horsemen, and the valiant
border lords played an important part in defending the Byzantine
Empire from its enemies, but the Byzantines never really trusted
either group. A barbarian chieftain was far too likely to ride off
with his hordes and found a kingdom of his own as Theodoric had done
in Italy. A border lord from Asia Minor was too likely to try to
become emperor himself. Indeed, more than one had.
The Byzantines also had a navy, one of the best navies of the Middle
Ages. But often they did not rely on it as they did on their army.
For one thing, the emperors were always afraid of the navy for the
same reason that they were afraid of the border lords of Asia. They
were fearful that some admiral would use it to take their throne
from them. Three admirals did just that. Another reason was that the
Byzantines liked to be sure of what they were doing. But in those
days, ships were flimsy and the seas were full of unknown rocks and
sudden storms. The best of plans might be upset by the violence of
nature, and so it was more dependable to fight on land.
Just the same, when the Byzantines had to, they were always able to
get together a fleet, and it was usually a good one. When Justinian
sent an invasion army to North Africa, he had enough ships to need
20,000 sailors. It was the navy that twice drove the Arabs from
Constantinople. In 853 A.D., the Byzantines were able to send 300
ships against Egypt. A little later, Zoe Black Eyes could order a
veritable armada all the way to Italy to drive Saracen sea raiders
from their stronghold near Naples. When the Byzantines attacked
the pirates in Crete, they were able to send 105 dromonds and 75
Pamphylians. The dromond was the battleship of the Middle Ages. It
sometimes carried 300 men and was a bireme, that is, it had two
decks of oars on each side, one under the other. A Pamphylian was
a lighter, swifter cruiser. The admiral’s flagship was usually a
Pamphylian. There were also galleys; they had only one bank of oars
but were the swiftest of all.
It was the Byzantine navy that developed and used what was probably
the first “secret weapon” of all history. This was the famous Greek
fire. Even today nobody knows exactly what it was, except that it
was a complicated mixture of chemicals, one of which may have been a
crude form of petroleum.
The Byzantines pumped it at the enemy through huge tubes or hurled it
at them from portable siphons almost like modern flame throwers. Even
water would not put it out. So it was fairly easy to destroy an enemy
fleet. Greek fire frightened the enemy even more.
But the Byzantines did not rely only on the army or the navy to win
their battles for them. Helping them in every way was the Byzantine
diplomatic service. For just as the Byzantines did not ever fight a
battle if they could find some other way of winning it, so too they
didn’t even begin a war unless they had to. Why fight if they could
persuade an enemy to become their friend and ally? Why fight, and
risk their own safety, if they could talk someone else into fighting
for them? To the Byzantines, this made sense.
It was up to their diplomatic service to do this, and the reason it
was able to do so very often was because here too the Byzantines knew
just what they were doing. Under the Logothete of the Dromos, they
had an almost modern intelligence system taken care of by a special
department whose one job was to collect information about foreign
nations.
How can such and such a country help the Byzantines and how can it
hurt them?
How can it best be won over by the Byzantines—by force, by honors and
favors, or by gifts?
If the last, by what kind of gifts?
Has it any enemies, and if so, who are they?
What were its origins? What is its history? What is its climate and
its geographical position?